


Hell Is Easier with Some Friends

by AproposOfInsomnia



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Academia Is Just An Insanity Factory, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Professors, Fluff, Gen, Joe and Nicky Wildin Out, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:08:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26415430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AproposOfInsomnia/pseuds/AproposOfInsomnia
Summary: Nile is just trying to pass in her thesis and move along. Her new friends refuse to let it be that easy.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf & Nicky | Nicolò, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Nile Freeman, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 109





	Hell Is Easier with Some Friends

As much as Nile wanted blame Booker for everything, she knew it was at least partially her own fault. The school had stood out to her. It was in a good location, close enough to a city to not feel like a cult, not terribly expensive, and had a good program to boot. There were a few questionable reviews across the internet, buried deep in the usual school pride drivel, but she wrote them off as drunken shenanigans and applied. Then she met Booker. 

It had been one of those endless orientation circuits that no self-respecting adult should ever have to take part in. He was all the way in the back corner, already looking every bit the overstressed grad student with a scruffy excuse for a beard and dead eyes, his chair leaned back, and his ankles crossed over the table. She sat next to him half out of curiosity, half because all the other seats were taken and quickly found it to be a good choice. They scoffed their way through the horribly cliché speeches from the equally cliché staff and verbally sparred through the mandatory conversations. They left with a burgeoning friendship and the sour taste of irony burning the backs of their throats. From there they found themselves sitting together in the few classes they shared before beginning to meet up for meals and commiserating over seemingly endless essays and tests. She quickly found him falling into the role of a surrogate brother, the beginnings of a family away from home. 

It was him who dragged her into the shitshow her academic career turned into. He had taken over her computer as soon as class signups for their second year had opened, clicking frantically on her laptop, forgoing his own schedule. The palpable excitement rolling off her usually apathetic friend would have been enough to try and stop him if curiosity had not stayed her hand. He wound up filling her schedule with courses from professors Jones, Smith, and someone listed only as S. Booker had started laughing at every question she asked from the moment it was finalized and didn’t stop until the first day of classes. 

Despite his focus on her schedule he had managed to snag all afternoon lessons and offered to walk her to her first period, in all her infinite curiosity she agreed. He led her up to the third floor of the Languages building, a rare spring in his step. The entire place smelled lovely in a way that made her entire body ache in hunger. Without Booker’s hand on her arm she probably would have stood there trying to fill her stomach with the aroma itself for who knows how long. 

Only one door was open, a man stood just outside leaning half against the doorframe. He was dressed in comfortable looking, if a bit formal, linens and smiling at everyone who passed with a nose dominated, but not unhandsome face. The smile he turned on them was soft and parental in a way that made Nile want to curl up and tell him all her problems. 

“Booker!” His voice was thick with an accent and happy in a way that clearly labeled him as a friend. 

“Hey. This is Nile,” Booker seemed comfortable as he introduced them in a way he rarely was, even as he was pulled into a gentle half hug. 

“Wait? You guys are friends? Booker doesn’t have friends.” 

The professor let out a noise somewhere between a laugh and a snort while Booker’s face lit up in an indignant blush, his mouth open to argue, curse her out, or both. Nile’s stomach took the opportunity to growl, the heavenly smell seeming to only get better the longer they stood around. Seeming to forget his anger he grabbed her arm again and led her through the door. 

The classroom was mostly empty, with only a handful of academic posters tacked up on white walls inlaid with too many windows. The light came from small table lamps dotted across low bookshelves giving the room a comforting orange glow. The only truly odd thing was the large table set against the back of the room. It had been carefully laid out with serving bowls and platters that looked to be filled with homemade food of countless variety. Interspersed among the space was recyclable plates and cutlery. It was all guarded by a full suit of armor wearing a muscle apron. Nile was standing, frozen in awe, when something warm, bready, and practically dripping in butter wrapped in a cheap napkin was pressed into her hand. The professor waited for her to take a bite, giving her an approving, if a bit disgusted, look when she shoved the entire thing in her mouth in lieu of a second bite. 

“Professor Smith is well known around here for his free food,” Booker nudged her shoulder with his as he spoke, his attention on the table before them. 

At that point students had begun to trickle in, each one just as confused as Nile had been. Booker took his leave quickly with his pockets full and a plate curled protectively to his torso. He smiled at Nile and gave the professor a sarcastic salute before disappearing around the corner. It was a good class spent going over the syllabus and nothing else. No forced introductions or team building exercises, just calm words and delicious food. 

The next day found her back in the same building, a floor below. She had arrived early, only to have to wait with everyone else as the professor was running over ten minutes late. 

The man that came trotting down the hall was the last thing she expected. If it weren’t for the faculty ID hanging from an already crammed lanyard, she would have thought he was a student as well. He was tilting as he moved, as if the leather satchel thrown over his shoulder was weighing him down, one hand grasping the strap and the other wrapped around a metal coffee cup, that was raised in a desperate attempt to keep him from spilling. An earth toned scarf of ridiculous length was wrapped around his neck, one end trailing behind him from where it had fallen from his shoulder, matching the beanie slouched atop a mass of dark curly hair over a dark curly beard. She was suddenly hit with the image of a poodle at Starbucks and she tried to cough away her laughter as he twirled past with a mirthful smile. 

Professor Jones, as he introduced himself with a flourish, had a room the exact opposite of Professor Smith’s. The blinds were down except for the ends that were taped back on themselves to reveal windows cracked open for a pleasant breeze. Every inch of the walls was covered in something. Poems printed in regal black text, colorful illustrated quotes, band posters, flags, even little dolls flying from the ceiling on fishing wire. Anything and everything seemed to have a place there. Even his teaching seemed to be in direct contrast to the other’s, rushing to get everyone outside for an admittedly amusing game of tag. The image of a puppy never quite left her mind. 

It wasn’t until the end of the week that Nile met the final member of Booker’s mysterious friend group. It was the only lecture she has and the professor was running late. She found herself a good spot and made it a fair way through her Instagram feed before the door slammed open. In came a woman with short cropped, dark hair and an angular face dressed in dark leather and denim. The auditorium went silent at the sharp clang of her bag dropping onto the podium. 

“I am your professor. You will address me as: Professor. Am I clear?” The glare she leveled across the students seemed to carry a physical chill, “Good.” 

The rest of her class went on just like that. Everything she said was confident and direct. When she was done, she simply grabbed her bag and walked off. The entire thing was somehow both immensely relieving and terribly overwhelming and she found herself if she had been able to survive the semester. 

She blinked, and suddenly she was a senior rounding the bases toward graduation. Everything had changed. The professors had become Joe, Nicky, and Andy as Booker’s friends became her own. Andy, the terrifying matriarch of the art department, had even offered to be her thesis advisor. She found herself hanging out with them quite a bit, but she was about done with their ability to get into some bullshit. 

Joe and Nicky, having been married for years, were connected at the hip. They combined their classes more often than not, to the endless displeasure of Dean Copley. It wouldn’t have been much of a problem. In fact, they had they habit of being infuriatingly adorable, if not for the time Joe forgot about an exam Nicky had planned. 

Nile, having never seen Nicky be anything other than endlessly kind, passive aggressive at the very worst, could barely wrap her head around the anger overtaking his face as he slowly turned toward Joe who had entered already rambling about something. 

“We have a test today,” His voice was flat and cold, if it weren’t for the mirthful glitter in his eye, she would have thought him royally pissed. 

Nobody moved for the longest second. Then, it was a mad scramble, with Joe nearly falling to the floor as he ran out the door and Nicky vaulting his snack table to pull free the sword from his armor’s scabbard. They met in the hallway where Joe had returned after getting his own, curved and artistic as opposed to the heavy straight of Nicky’s. They fenced up and down the hall, yelling in a variety of languages and slapping wherever they could reach with the flats of their blades. They continued until a phone call startled them apart, the impressed crowed they had gathered scattered and it was as if nothing had ever happened. 

As it turned out Nicky’s tests were infamous across the campus for being both next to impossible and heavily policed. If anyone spoke about the contents and he found out about it, not only would they be subject to a failing grade but the hovering, potent disappointment of Professor Smith. 

Drinking with them was something Nile was still getting used to. 

“Okay. You’re not a puppy, you’re a demon now put the weapons down,” her voice was desperate as she edged closer to where Joe stood. 

“You thought I was a puppy? That’s cute! Nicky! Babe! Nile thought I was a puppy!” he was wobbling slightly in inebriation but refused to pay Nile any attention. “Now how many are you saying?” 

It was rapidly approaching three in the morning. They had originally met up to get through the piling up work they all had, but the beers had come out early, followed by the wine, then they were doing jager bombs and placing bets on how many times Joe could juggle his and Nicky’s swords along with a large dual sided ax Andy had pulled from nowhere with no idea as to how to actually juggle. 

“Hmm…five,” Nicky seemed largely unbothered as he and Booker sat sprawled on the couch with their heads together, cursing out the Food Network in lazy French. 

“I’ll say six just to be contrary, not because I actually believe he can do it,” Andy was the one that seemed somewhat sober, even after she had chugged what looked an awful lot like an entire bottle of vodka. 

“Screw you Andy! I’m still going to take that a compliment.” 

Late night hospitals could be fun. 

Nile was not an angry person. She was taught to forgive and forget and for the most part she lived by that. This was not the most part. Where there used to be a carefully constructed wall of text, finally rid of the angry highlights and so very close to being done, there was nothing. A blank document stared at her, the cursor blinking mockingly. Andy had reached out from her spot over Nile’s shoulder, helping her edit a particularly difficult portion, and accidentally tapped the screen. And deleted her entire thesis. All of it. 

“I am going to kill you.” 

Countless students awoke that morning to the frantic screaming of one of the most respected women in art. They opened their curtains to see said woman sprinting across the quad, yelling for a “Booker” in her flannel pajamas and glasses, followed closely by her protégé looking what looked to be an ax. 

Then she blinked again and the cheers of graduation were ringing in her ears, combining with the comfortable wooziness of being tipsy and filling her with warmth. Her mom had messaged her to say that she would be arriving with her brother the next day. Joe and Nicky were curled on a loveseat in the corner, asleep with Nicky’s head shoved into Joe’s neck and their hands folded together. They had lost their voices with all their cheering. Andy was on the floor against the couch, her head leant back onto the cushions and her fingers twirling to the faint music of the forgotten TV, a proud smile still lurking around the corners of her eyes and mouth. Booker was clearly somewhere else, sat in the window and basking in the moonlight, his smile small, private, and so very happy. It felt good to have made it.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know if there are any glaring mistakes and I'll fix them as soon as I can


End file.
